#SOMEONE SMART PLEASED DO THIS

[lanaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

CJNT DO SHXIT IN HEREE

AHVtqhwvsjjfbwvxhg

[cozylittleartblog]

"content creator" is a corporate word.

we are artists.

[alien-enjoyer]

someone has to say it. etho is a horrifically unreliable narrator. probably as much as scar is. he’s just sneakier about it so people are less likely to expect it and more likely to fall for his facades

[radios-universe]

oh no… diagnosis is loneliness… my heart is breaking… i need a non-dating dating app to find aroace people in my area NOW STAT

[muffinlance]

I really do love your writing and Salvage gets me through when I am sad or depressed. However, I was wondering, how do you cope when someone who wrote a review didn’t like your writing? If you’ve had this before… I had one today and I am dejected. I’m working through my perfectionism and I keep telling myself, “my writing isn’t for everyone and it’s okay.” Any advice?

If it was unsolicited, especially on a fanfic? Delete it, block the person if you feel like, then go do your rage activity of choice before forgetting about it forever. That person is rude and doesn't deserve your time anymore than someone bumping into you on the street.

I've also found it useful to actively think of my fanfic as writing practice, and not even my brain expects perfection from writing practice. It also frees you do Try Cool Things.

Now take this digital blanket and cup of hot chocolate and go reread your nice comments.

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[firesofdainix]

Life is beautiful. But then you go to YouTube and find a video called "The Truth About Stanford Pines" and the thumbnail has a red arrow calling him a bad person and now your day is ruined.

[aspiring-hobbit]

Also I need to see some theories about WHY this is a night job! All they’re doing is organizing incidents there’s no obvious reason I can think of that it can’t be done during the day so what’s going on there?

[shannonsketches]

One of my favorite differences in the DBZ manga that makes Vegebul make More Sense To Me, is that because Vegeta never left Earth, he was living at Capsule Corp for over two years before Bulma got pregnant (assuming Trunks is like 3-6mos old when we see him as a baby), but she said she 'wouldn't live with that jerk' afterward, which implies (to me) that he'd been a chill enough housemate up until the pregnancy, which tracks with his generally private and professional behavior as a Lord in the Freeza Force (in the manga).

I like to think it became a compounding factor in learning that he was slated to be killed in a year, and led to him being uncharacteristically overzealous and performative (and so opposed to Trunks getting close to him) in the android saga as opposed to how strategic and cautious he was with serious threats in the Freeza saga.

I am also always thinking about how Something Happened between him losing to Cell and re-entering the time chamber in the manga, because he was back living at Capsule Corp and staying near Trunks and Bulma when the Cell Games were announced.

[moonchild-in-blue]

I can't believe Vessel played Childish Gambino. I'm-

[brionnnne]

note that i will only ever call mithrun "stupid" jokingly. by "stupid", i only mean "frustrating behavior that i am immensely familar with". seeing him do something that makes me groan aloud, closing my eyes, sighing "stupid (affectionate, mournful)". like when he fucking... his dumbass "i don't want to [use the bathroom] right now, so it's fine." oughh. i know you! i know you! that's not how that works!!! and he's smart!!! he's so smart... but god, god... he's kind of an absent professor. he's kind of a cloudcuckoolander. i love him dearly. he gets called a dummy, a little idiot, and i flick his forehead, a little bonk of hard-heads, like "try again, idiot. that's not how bodies work." and "ooh, 'that's not going to work'. yes it is. shut up, stoopid. stubborn little man, my god." rolling my eyes forever.

[incorrectsibunaquotes]

tumblr glitched and spared you all the most heated rant of my entire hoa fandom tenure

[cookinguptales]

that said, as much as I've been struggling the past 48 hours or so, I have to admit that it has felt a little clarifying.

I've been playing the hell out of stardew valley, like I always do when I'm struggling with my PMDD, because the calming repetitive movements and bite-sized tasks (which induce the illusion of productivity) make it much easier to calm my mind and like...

I keep thinking "wouldn't it be nice to make something that soothes...?"

I felt a little embarrassed last night when I was writing about how I realized that AITNISTS would have meant the world to me when I was a queer, disabled teen feeling very broken and unlovable, and how now it almost feels like I'm writing bedtime stories for a ghost.

but... I think to some degree, that's nice, too... if I'm writing what soothes me, maybe it'll soothe someone else, too. making art that soothes people that feel broken... I think that would be nice. or... kind, at least. maybe.

it's something to aspire to, at least.

like sometimes I do feel this weird need to make something beautiful or complex or important but I guess "important" can mean a lot of different things, and so can "beautiful"...

I'm obviously never going to win any kind of literary prize with monsterfucking hurt/comfort but like. idk. maybe it's enough to write the kind of book that would have made me feel like I was capable of being loved and wanted when I was a kid.

especially if it helps anyone else now...

idk. it's a nice thought, at the very least.

[nalgenewhore]

so i actually went and read that article (grazie sophia christie on the cut). its flagrantly self-obsessed - she goes on for paragraphs about how she's just one of the smart girls who got picked up by a fully-formed man (then 30 to her then 23) while passing on badly disguised barbed 'pity' onto the now 20-year-old girls.

the reason for this pity is that they're currently teaching men how to live - how to grocery shop, how to move into an apartment, how to do laundry, etc. she pities them because "statistically, they will not end up" with their current boyfriends, and the next woman will benefit from this now fully-formed man while never knowing who came before her.

for someone who incessantly proclaims their intelligence (says if her classmates AT HARVARD were supposed to be smart girls, why aren't they out here getting with older men, oh btw did you pick up that she went to harvard? her ba in literature is from harvard university?), she can't see the painful irony of her own situation. her husband (not partner, gods- can you imagine being in a partnership with your significant other?!) magically appeared to her as a fully-formed grown man, and for whatever reason she does not divulge, he is the singular statistical outlier of all men -- no woman formed him! she is not living off some poor discarded girl's unappreciated labour right now!

this sentence in her last paragraph just prove my point: "Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we'd given each other our respective best years." Because you, unlike all those women you pity and the women in his life you oh-so-easily forget, didn't have to grow into who you are with someone. You said it yourself "At 20, I felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn't imagine doing it in tandem with somone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse" (emphasis added). That project still daunts her, and she never reconciled with it. She just exported that burden to someone who had already done that work and knew what kind of person he wanted, so she became that person. She's a fraud.

go fuck yourself grazie sophia christie. ig that harvard literature ba isnt worth shit if you're such a self-deceiving author whose critical eye only ever turns outward.

[kelpiemomma]

friends i am begging you, if you want to get a dog and have never had one before, DO YOUR RESEARCH ON BREEDS.

i was working with a lady the other day who was telling me she wanted a puppy and had never had one before, so she went and adopted a 7 month old husky/border collie mix from the shelter after being denied at [pet store] for working too many hours. i'm pretty sure she got this dog because it has complete heterochromia and is a very tidy black and white, like a standard border collie.

please. do NOT do this. look into what dog breed will BEST fit your lifestyle. if you work long hours, do NOT get a working dog breed. maybe even don't get a dog. maybe get a less affectionate cat. i do not give a single FUCK if the dog is pretty. do both yourself and the dog a favor and get the dog that fits your life!!! do not get a working dog and stick it in an apartment or house and wonder why it's eating your furniture and destroying your house!!!

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

How many more times must i be forced to go through an awful day and then remind people, who I know personally and previously knew to be very intelligent, that the reason why some people get worried about whether or not an online person they interact with is “real” is because there is such a thing as fucking scams.